


The Drum that Beats in the Heart of My Chest

by Good_Grief



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Future, Canon Compliant, Canon Universe, Complete, Far Future, Future Fic, Galra Keith (Voltron), M/M, Past Character Death, Past Keith/Axca (voltron), Post-Season/Series 08 Finale, Sad and Beautiful, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-18
Updated: 2019-05-08
Packaged: 2020-01-16 05:14:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,696
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18514621
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Good_Grief/pseuds/Good_Grief
Summary: For Keith, there are infinite universes and infinite Shiros, so maybe, just maybe, in one of them (or all of them) they can be together.





	1. The Drum That Beats in the Heart of My Chest

The Drum in the Heart of My Chest

 

Keith stares out the window of his mobile home, he lives in a world where a ‘mobile’ isn’t a trailer parked in a row of caravans, it’s a ship. This one is long outdated in style and design but the technology holds up still. The outside is decidedly Galra, grey and black, but the crystals that power it are from a local balmera. Hunk was the one who put the ship together, so it doesn’t matter that it’s outdated, it was a gift, and now it’s Keith’s home.

Along that vein, the window is not so much a window. It’s the dome in the helm of his ship, and he lays on his back, mattress rolled out on the floor so he can look up at the stars. Kosmo sits and stares with him.  _Shiro would have loved this,_ he thinks, a small smile on his face. It's not just Keith and his cosmic wolf alone with his thoughts these days though. 

“Tell me a story?” a small voice asks beside him, “A bedtime story, a good one.”

“What would you like to hear about? When the Galra came to be a republic?” Keith asks in return. It’s been a long, long time since the Galra become a republic. Krolia has been part of the Elder Council for long enough that grey tinges her hair. Keith continues softly, “How about the time your mother saved the Red Paladin from her pirate associates?”

Tiny blue hands reach up to form a diamond and she uses the shape to catch the stars overhead. “No, my mother left me here with you, so I think I get to pick the stories.”

Keith chuckles to himself and thinks that he must be getting mellow in his old age. What would Shiro think if he could see him now? Keith, the man who opened his home to Axca’s orphaned daughter. Zethrid and Ezor suggesting to him that if Axca wasn’t going to be there to care for her, that there was no place for her in the world they lived in. He knows that they’re right, the child had grown up on the proverbial road, all the people she called family were spies for the Voltron Coalition. She was halfway to adolescence and he had argued that he had no skill as a parent, nothing to teach her except how to out-fly a Galra general and gut a man six ways to Daibazaal.

All the skills Axca would have given her, they assured him. He met her at the funeral, still in the armor of the Blades or Marmora, she had eyes like violet, pale blue skin and dark blue hair falling in waves. She only came up to his waist, and she let him lead her away from there, head held high and eyes dry. _Strong,_ Keith thought, and still does. “My name is Atlas,” She said, and it almost broke his heart. If her appearance didn’t confirm it, and her age didn’t make him suspicious, her name was enough for him to know why they were sending her to him.

Her hands fall to her sides as she sits up only to tuck her knees to her chest and sigh. “How about the one where the Black Paladin and the Red Paladin fall in love. Or the captain of the Atlas and Voltron fall in love.” She seems to be at an age now where once she had wanted stories of battles and hi-jinx, now she wants to hear about romance.   
“--Or what about that one where the Black Paladin is in a fantasy? And Red is a thief out to steal his heart? What about that one?”

“It sounds like you know all the stories better than I do,” Keith smiles, crinkles at the corner of his eyes. He sits up to bend his knees into a lotus and his long braid follows the motion, swaying across his back to settle against his spine.

“They are wonderful stories though,”

Keith smiles and closes his eyes, mellow in his old age indeed if he’s bringing this up. “How about, the one where Shiro goes to Kerberos? Have I told you about that one?”

“No! Let’s hear it,” and suddenly the names he has called them all along, Black and Red fall away to the story that _he_ wants to hear, wants to tell.

“Well. It’s starts off with Shiro, a young captain and excellent pilot about to go on a mission to Kerberos…” he begins, trying to remember what it may have been so very long ago.

“Wait- is he one of the Paladins?”

“Not in this story, in this story he’s just Shiro. Now Shiro was a mentor to Keith,” He smiles. “And Keith was too young and untrained to go with Shiro on this mission that Earth had asked him to do. The mission would take time. Earth’s ships were very slow back then.”

“What was he doing on Kerberos?”

“I don’t remember,” Keith says, his voice sounding as far away as the memory is. “I honestly cannot say, I think they went to do what all missions from Earth were like in that day. Look around, bring back some rocks. He took the Holts with him.”

“It’s not just a story is it?”

Keith chooses to ignore her this time. “While he’s gone, Keith is well behaved and quiet and-” She snorts into her hands, Krolia is an awful influence on her. “Well it’s not perfect, but he manages anyway, and he becomes a fighter pilot, and by the time Shiro returns he’s ready to honor his promise. He said, ‘next time, I’ll go with you, I’ll be your co-pilot’ and he does.”

“What do they do next?”

“Well, they travel the stars together forever,” Keith smiles to himself quietly. They travel the stars together forever... only they don’t.

The Shiro Keith knows never returns home, Keith has to go find him. The Shiro in the story is whole of body and mind and doesn’t die fighting for a planet that isn’t his in some foreign spacecraft, though Keith loved him just the same. In the story Keith knows, Shiro goes back to Earth, damaged, but finds peace and marries a man from the bridge of Atlas and never knows the extent of what Keith felt, because Keith never felt the need to tell him. He lives out his days as a retired Galaxy Garrison officer and dies peacefully in his sleep surrounded by friends and one wayward brother so very long ago. This reality has already seen it’s Keith learn what it is to be Galra when you love someone that is human.

“And they lived happily ever after?”

Keith though, knows the truth of dimensions and realities. For Keith, there are infinite universes and infinite Shiros. So maybe in one, maybe in all of them, they can.

“What happens when they die though?”

“Well, when they die they become two stars right next to each other in the constellation of the Black Lion. After all. They promised they’d to give each other the universe.”

“And did they?”

A fire burns and beats like drum in the heart of his chest. Keith would dare the whole universe to tell him otherwise. Atlas meets his gaze and knows that this story is somehow different than the rest, somehow she can see the person Keith once was, the Red Paladin, ever loyal, looking back at her. “Yes,” he says, and his voice does not waver. “They did.”


	2. Love Most Noble, Love Most True, Love Most Wise

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I thought this would just be one story about stories, but it turns out it’s three. Surprise?

**Love Most Noble, Love Most True, Love Most Wise**

 

There are too many stars that could be suns to set to mark the passing of time in space, but Keith thinks he could mark the passing of years by the questions that Atlas asks, and where she’s asking from. She’s not the little girl, half his size, braiding his long hair and wondering where the Balmera come from. She’s not the girl who wants to know of the romantic adventures of the Paladins of Voltron. She’s grown up just enough, just enough to take up her own cause and join the Blade of Marmora, just enough that she’s not laying on a mattress looking up at the stars in Keith’s ship. 

His screen lights up with the private lines Pidge installed just years before she died. ATLAS, it says, and he smiles wryly at the irony. It’s a variation of the Atlas tech, the same model used to com with Voltron, the ship wrought between worlds. 

The screen lights up with Atlas’ face and although his eyes soften, he can tell that she’s not just making a social call. 

“This line is secure,” he says. 

Her hand curls up to the side of her face, delicate in features, she looks like Axca in all the best ways. She’s as stubborn as Keith. 

“Oh good,” She sighs, “I had something to talk about but I admit it’s embarrassing.”

“Not business then. I take it?” 

“No, not at all,” She perks up. “So I’ve been on New Altea for months now, and I’m supposed to move on next week, but…” 

“Is this why I haven’t heard from you since I came back from visiting the Garrison?” 

“Well, in a roundabout way, I guess,” She tilts her head to the left, letting it rest on the back of her palm. “So, there’s this Altean. He’s funny, he’s great, and he asked me to go to the Allurance festival, you know, the day they celebrate Allura and bring Lance in from that god forsaken plot of land he usually refuses to leave, it’s actually really awful now that I think of it.” 

“I don’t recall them calling it the Alurrance festival.” 

“Oh, they don’t, but anyone younger than two hundred deca-phoebs knows it is what it is.” 

“Are you calling me old?” 

“Duh,” she smiles and he wishes she could have known Hunk, how they would have gotten along. 

“Couldn't you ask your Aunt Ezor?” 

“Sure,” she smiles, her expression open and fond. “If I wanted an essay on how cute Zethrid is when she punches someone’s lights out.” 

“Well, that’s what love is to her, I don’t know what it is to you,” Keith shrugs. 

She’s looking away, slightly shy, as if she knows she’s treading where monsters fear. “What is it to you, Dad?” 

Keith scratches the back of his neck, if she’s pulling the ‘dad’ card, then it’s likely more serious than he thought. 

“Are you asking for my sage advice?” 

“Yes,” She bites the corner of her lip in anticipation. 

Keith nods, “I can’t really tell you, but I can tell you a few stories, about a few different loves.” 

It’s just like Atlas is tiny and young again, like a child with her knees tucked up under her chin, arms wrapped around her shins, when he used to tell her stories of magic before she grew too old and ornery to believe in them. 

“Well, Allura and Lance had love most noble,” He began. “They grew fond of each other before the end, but for Lance it was fuel on a candle he had been holding since the beginning. At first he was blinded by her beauty, and then by her person, but he came to see her flaws. Let me tell you Atlas, even though nobody on Altea will remember, there were flaws that ran deep in Allura. The thing is, Lance came to appreciate them too. They loved each other the way stars shine in the dark, across the barriers of time itself. She gave her life with love for all of us, and she gave the rest of her years to Lance. Lance will love her for all eternity, in life, and in death. The Festival of the White Lion is a celebration of her love for us, Lance’s love for her, and the sacrifice she surrendered to, once in Oriande, and once at the end.” 

Keith tells the story with many years of conviction, of a universal truth that must be believed because it burns too much in the back of his throat to say that she could have died for nothing. 

“I don’t want that kind of love,” She says. 

“Nobody should,” Keith confirms. “Hunk and Shay had love most true. Have you ever seen the sculpture of them holding hands on the Balmera that lives in the Milky Way?” 

“Oh, yes, I have. Hunk is wearing this really tall earth hat and apron. It’s a really good sculpture.” 

“Yes, it’s perfect. The Balmera made it for them. Hunk and Shay lived together despite the fact that Shay is made of rock and earth, and Hunk of sea and sky. Hunk spent all his days away, performing feats of diplomacy and culinary practice. The Balmera drifted behind, and he would spend his nights back in her arms. Hunk grew old though, as humans do, and Shay willed her life to match his, the Balmera itself crystalized that sculpture over their shared grave in celebration of the day they returned to her.” 

It doesn’t matter that they spent so much time apart, Hunk and Shay were always on the same wavelength, always understanding and almost mystic. Keith misses them both fiercely. He wishes that they could have had more time together, but he knows neither would have felt that way about it. They were happy for the time they did have. 

“What about…” Atlas hesitates, and Keith is sure it’s to be about Shiro, but it’s not. “You and mom, I’ve always kind of wondered, did you love each other?” 

“Axca and I…” he begins, out of practice with telling stories, but still able to make everything sound better. “We had a love most wise. Your mother had been in love with Lotor, once and for a long time, but he had never looked at her as more than a useful tool in the plans he had. There was something there, I think we came together over loss and sadness. We knew what it was like to hurt, to be left behind, and we held each other up for a brief moment. We knew the reality of it, that it wasn’t to be the forever kind of love. Neither of us loved each other the way we should have, but we made you, and you have always been a source of love, for both of us, at different times of our lives. Axca was a great friend, and an incredible person.” 

Atlas nods, she’s never been told directly but she has always known. The sadness in Keith’s eyes when he spoke about her, the storm violet eyes that as she got older, only looked more and more like Keith’s. 

“Okay, I think I get it,” she says. “What about you and Shiro?” 

“ _ Takashi,” _ he whispers, the pain raw in his voice. “I loved him, love him still, will love him always. I have saved him every time, as many times as it took, as many times as he needed, when he asked or when he didn’t. He loved Curtis though, and that was fine, when he smiled at him, when he was happy… well, that was always the most important thing. That’s all I ever wanted for him, was to be happy, it was okay if he wasn’t mine, wasn’t with me, as long as he was happy.” 

“Oh,” Atlas smiles.  _ Love most patient.  _

Keith chokes up and looks away, the pain evident to see, but soft in his features, fond, as if it were a familiar friend. Love most noble, most true, most wise had settled into his bones and would never let him go. “So,” he changes the subject. “Tell me about your Altean.” 

“Well, he’s tall…” She starts, and by the time she’s finished, he can see the happiness lighting up her features, dark blue blushing across her face in delight as she describes how he asked her to the festival and she was too surprised to say something, but she thinks that maybe if she brought him flowers…

He smiles, and it’s enough. 


End file.
